ARTISTIC LICENSE

How an architect harnessed his vision and attention to detail to create his own modern dream home

STORY BY LISA KRESL | PHOTOGRAPHY BY DANNY FULGENCIO

DAN ECKELKAMP IS THE ARCHITECT OF HIS OWN FATE.

He designed his 2,800-square-foot home on Sexton Lane, and he and his wife, Angie, moved into it in June 2018. The two-story, three-bedroom modern house, which was highlighted on the 13th Annual AIA Dallas Tour of Homes in November, exceeds the couple’s needs in every way.

“We’re definitely contemporary fans both in the architecture and in the art and sculpture world,” Dan says. “We wanted a calm, serene but warm modern throughout the house so that you feel comfortable living in it as opposed to having statement pieces that say, ‘Don’t touch. Don’t sit on me.’”

Dan, of Eckxstudio for Modern Architecture, found inspiration from Angie’s passion for piano. The rhythm of notes on sheet music guided his vision when he designed the pattern of batten strips on the house’s exterior. “We call it the barcode, but it’s really the way the lyricalness came off of a page of music and translated itself into the design of the façade.”

The fact that the property is on a street corner allowed the couple to place the garage in the back of the house, unlike most of the neighbors who have their garages in the front. The home’s entry opens to a side courtyard, complete with pool, fire pit and a covered outdoor living space. Large windows in the living room and kitchen make the courtyard the home’s focal point.

An architect’s finds:

• Bill’s Plastics Inc. for art displays, billsplastics.com.

• Concept Surfaces for tile materials, conceptsurfaces.com.

• Lights Fantastic for light fixtures, lightsfantastic.com.

• Lumens.com for lighting.

• ClearView TV Mirrors, clearviewtvmirror.com.

Dan works at home, so his downstairs office faces the street. Cabinetry and the powder room separate the office from the rest of the house. “I can have client meetings with a separation between the business and personal side,” he says. “I love watching the neighborhood go by. Neighbors wave as they see me working away.”

Since the couple does a lot of cooking, the kitchen is outfitted with an induction cook top. The cabinets are two-tone with painted gray and sealed white oak.

The three bedrooms and a laundry room are upstairs. The master, which faces a big oak, elicits the feeling of living in a tree house. Angie, who is vice president of marketing for Nothing Bundt Cakes, uses one bedroom as her home office.

In addition to designing the home, Dan was hands-on throughout the construction process, directing the subcontractors and even pulling out his own tools when needed. He placed the patterned sidewalk by the pool himself. “Sometimes they didn’t get it just perfect, and I’m a very perfect-leaning architect,” he says.

Dan, whose father was a woodworker, even built some of the furniture himself. The living room’s white oak end table boasts an opening that allows the couple’s two cats to circulate through it. He also designed and built the marble top bar.

Red dining room chairs and the couple’s extensive art collection provide pops of color. “Most of our art is by Texas artists,” he says. “We collect what we love.”

Most whimsical is a triptych by Carmen Flores, an artist who just graduated from the art program at the University of Texas at Dallas. She makes molds for gummy bear forms, casts them and then photographs them in various scenes around the Dallas area. A sculpture of inflated steel is by Texas Tech professor William Cannings. Artist Linda Weitz folded annuity statements like gum wrappers and created a piece that dominates the stairwell. Dan’s beloved work, by Denton-based artist Paul Booker, includes 110 layers of ink and polyurethane.

“The living room with art is a favorite of mine,” he says. “I love to come here in the mornings and evenings and relax, watch the sun come up or go down and enjoy the way the light changes in the space. It’s not a cold museum-like space.”